by Brad Thor
CHAPTER 49
Three and a half hours later, Harvath spoke into his headset and said, “You’re positive?”
“Yes,” replied the Troll, who went over the information again. “Abdel Salam Najib is a Syrian intelligence operative who has been known to use the alias Abdel Rafiq Suleiman.”
Najib was the third name on the list, and the Suleiman alias had originally belonged to the man Harvath had killed. “What about Tammam Al-Tal?” he asked.
“Also Syrian intelligence and Najib’s handler. That’s the connection you were looking for, isn’t it?” asked the Troll.
“Maybe,” said Harvath, not wanting to give anything away to the Troll. “I want you to forward us everything you pulled on both Najib and his handler, Al-Tal.”
“I’ll send it now.”
Harvath logged off his computer, removed his headset, and turned to face his colleagues.
“You want to explain this to me?” asked Finney as he interlaced his thick fingers behind his head and stared at Harvath.
“On October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes-Benz delivery truck packed with explosives drove out to the Beirut International Airport. The First Battalion Eighth Marines of the U.S. Second Marine Division had established their headquarters there as part of a multinational peacekeeping force sent to oversee the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon.
“The driver of the truck circled the parking lot just outside the Marine compound and then stepped on the gas. He plowed through the barbed wire fence on the perimeter of the parking lot, flew between two sentry posts, went through a gate, and rammed his vehicle into the lobby of the Marine HQ.”
“Why didn’t the sentries shoot this idiot?” asked Finney.
“They weren’t allowed to use live ammo,” replied Parker, who had lost a good friend that day. “The politicians were afraid an accidental discharge might kill a civilian.”
When Parker didn’t add any more, Harvath continued. “According to one Marine who survived the attack, the driver was smiling as he slammed his truck into the building.
“When he detonated his explosives the force was equivalent to over twelve thousand pounds of TNT. The rescue effort took days and was hampered by continual sniper fire. In the end, 220 Marines, eighteen Navy personnel, and three Army soldiers were killed. Sixty additional Americans were wounded. It was the highest single-day death toll for Marines since World War II and the battle of Iwo Jima. It’s also the deadliest attack on U.S. forces overseas post–World War II, but what’s most interesting from a counterterrorism viewpoint is that, kamikaze pilots not-withstanding, the attack on the Marine compound was the first real suicide bombing in history.”
Finney was speechless. He was familiar with the story, but not in such detail.
“We never knew exactly who was responsible, so aside from a few shells we lobbed at Syria, there never was any concrete response,” stated Harvath. “Now fast forward to about five years ago and a man named Asef Khashan.
“Khashan was extremely adept at guerrilla warfare and the use of high explosives courtesy of training he had received from Syrian intelligence.
“He was a driving force within the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist organization and reported directly to Damascus. When the United States uncovered information that Khashan had been directly involved in the planning and staging of the 1983 bombing, it was decided it was time for him to take an early retirement.”
Parker looked at Harvath from across the table and said, “And you were sent in to give him his pink slip.”
Harvath nodded.
Finney unclasped his hands and removed the pen he had tucked behind his ear. Pointing at the screen in the front of the room he said, “So this guy Najib is after you for what you did to Khashan?”
“If I’m right,” said Harvath, “then sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?”
“The actual connection between Najib and Khashan is via their handler, Tammam Al-Tal. Khashan was one of his best operatives. Some say that he was like a son to Al-Tal. When Khashan was killed, Al-Tal placed a bounty on my head.”
“If this was a covert operation, how’d he know you were involved?”
“We used a Syrian military officer the U.S. had on its payroll to help track down Khashan,” replied Harvath. “I never gave him my real name, but he had compiled a dossier on me with surveillance photos and other pieces of information from our meetings. When he was indicted for embezzlement not long after, he tried to use the dossier as a bargaining chip. The dossier eventually made its way to Al-Tal, who used all of his resources to connect a name to my photos. The rest is history.”
“Did Al-Tal have anything to do with the attack?” asked Parker.
“We could never uncover enough evidence to prove whether he was directly involved. There is a mounting pile of evidence, though, that Al-Tal has been helping coordinate the sell-off of the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein stashed in their country shortly before we invaded.”
“How much is the bounty he put on you?”
“Somewhere around $150,000 U.S.,” answered Harvath. “Allegedly, it represents the bulk of Al-Tal’s life savings, and due to his willingness to expend said life savings to fund my demise, the powers that be in Washington removed Syria and Lebanon from my area of operations.”
“It would seem that we’ve got more than enough to believe that Al-Tal is behind the attacks on Tracy, your mom, and the ski team,” said Finney. “Do you have any idea where he is?”
“He’s undergoing treatments in Jordan for stage-four lung cancer.”
“With the end drawing near,” stated Parker, “he’s probably even more determined to take you out.”
Harvath tilted his head in response as if to say, Maybe.
“But what does Najib’s alias have to do with Al-Tal?”
Harvath looked across the table at Parker. “Abdel Rafiq Suleiman was the alias Khashan was using when I tracked him down to a Hezbollah safe house just outside Beirut.”
“So?”
“Al-Tal had given Khashan that alias.”
“It’s not uncommon for aliases to be recycled,” offered Morgan. “In some instances, a lot of time and money goes into building them. If a previous operative wasn’t too high profile, an agency or a handler might decide to pass the alias on to another operative.”
At that moment, Harvath knew exactly how he was going to take down Abdel Salam Najib.
He was going to make his handler give him up on a silver platter.
CHAPTER 50
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Mark Sheppard had returned home with the makings of an absolute bombshell. Mac Mangan, the Charleston County SWAT team leader, had turned out to be a better resource than he ever could have imagined.
Though Mangan had asked that their discussion after the tape recorder was turned off be “off the record,” Sheppard knew there would be no story without it. It had taken him a major chunk of the afternoon, but he had finally gotten the SWAT team leader to agree to be quoted as an anonymous source.
Something was very wrong about that shooting, and Mangan had no desire to increase his complicity in it any further than he already had. The fact that a reporter from the Baltimore Sun had come all the way down to Charleston to talk to him about it told him he needed to start making things right.
Sheppard listened as the SWAT team leader recounted the events surrounding the takedown. It had all supposedly been coordinated via the FBI in D.C. But no one from the FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina, field office had been involved. The two agents who arrived to work with the SWAT team explained that the Columbia office was being purposely shut out. There was a concern that their fugitive had access to a person inside, and pending a full internal investigation, Charleston law enforcement was supposed to remain mum on the Bureau’s involvement in this takedown.
Sheppard had asked Mangan to describe the two FBI agents who had magically shown up from out of town with information leading to the subje
ct’s location. They were the same men whom Tom Gosse had seen take the body from the ME’s office in Baltimore and who had threatened Frank Aposhian. The SWAT leader had described them to a tee, right down to the names they were using—Stan Weston and Joe Maxwell.
The “agents” were very convincing. They were polite, professional, and had all the right credentials. What’s more, they had come to apprehend a criminal who had threatened to kill a bunch of kids and whom the whole state was anxious to see brought to justice.
Mangan and his Charleston County SWAT team were called out, but were relegated to providing cover as Weston and Maxwell took the lead. The pair claimed they wanted to talk to the suspect in hopes of bringing him out alive. Shortly after they entered the house where he was holed up a brief, but fierce gun battle ensued.
Before the smoke had even cleared, Maxwell was at the door letting Mangan and his men know that the suspect had been killed and that they were going to need a meat wagon.
As the lead tactical officer on site, Mangan approached the house to survey the scene for his after-action report. Weston met him at the threshold and bodily blocked his entrance. The agent stated that he and his partner needed to collect evidence and that until they were done, the fewer people trampling the crime scene the better. Mangan didn’t like it. These guys were being a little too overprotective, and he made his feelings known loudly enough that Maxwell came to the door and told Weston to let the SWAT leader inside.
The first thing he wanted to look at was the corpse. It was in a back bedroom, a machine pistol still clasped in his hand and a sawed-off shotgun lying on the floor next to him. As Mangan studied the body, something struck him as funny. In spite of all the bullet wounds the subject had suffered, he wasn’t bleeding very much.
As Mangan bent for a closer look, Agent Weston swooped in and said he needed him to back up so he could get on with his job. Regardless of the voice in the back of his head telling him he had every right to examine the corpse, Mangan did as he was told.
Moments later, Agent Maxwell gently hooked him under the elbow and led him back toward the front of the house. As they walked, Maxwell explained that the FBI had decided to give the Charleston County SWAT team credit for the takedown. This had been a local problem and the citizens of South Carolina would feel much better knowing their own people had put this animal out of commission.
Though it was going to make his guys look good, there was something about all of this that just didn’t sit right with Mangan—especially the body. He’d been around enough stiffs in his time to know that the only kind that didn’t spill blood when shot or stabbed was the kind that was already dead.
There was something else he didn’t feel right about. Maxwell and Weston looked and acted like the real deal, but there was something off about them that Mangan just couldn’t put his finger on.
Leaving the house, Mangan walked quickly back to the SWAT van and climbed inside. Grabbing one of the team’s small, black surveillance cases, he had his men switch radio frequencies and instructed them to keep their eyes on the house. If either of the FBI agents appeared at a window or was preparing to exit via the front or back door, he wanted to know about it. With that, Mangan exited the truck.
Crouching low so he wouldn’t be seen from inside, Mangan slipped around the side of the house, being careful to stay beneath the window line. When he arrived at the back bedroom where the body was, he unpacked a special fiberoptic stethoscope. He would have loved to have had a camera as well, but there was no way he could have drilled through the wall without being detected.
The fiberoptic stethoscope, or FOS for short, was an exceptionally sensitive instrument that enabled tactical teams to listen through doors, windows, and even concrete walls. Mangan powered up the FOS, put on a pair of headphones, and began listening to what was going on inside.
Considering that Maxwell and Weston had shot up a dead body, Mangan wasn’t surprised that they were busily planting evidence. What did surprise him was why they were doing it and on whose orders.
Once the SWAT team leader had finished recounting his tale, Sheppard understood why he had chosen to keep his mouth shut and go along with the charade. Now the ball was in Sheppard’s court, and he needed to plan his next move very carefully. He was about to accuse the president of the United States of several extremely serious crimes all tied together by a disgustingly elaborate cover-up.
CHAPTER 51
AMMAN, JORDAN
The two men sat inside the blue BMW 7 series on a quiet side street near the center of town. Most of the shops were closed for the afternoon prayer. “After this we’re even,” said the man in the driver’s seat as he retrieved a small duffel bag from the backseat and handed it to his passenger.
Harvath unzipped the bag and looked inside. Everything was there. “As soon as I am safely out of your country,” he replied with a smile, “then we’ll be even.”
Omar Faris, a high-ranking officer of Jordan’s General Intelligence Department, or GID for short, nodded his heavy, round head. The six-foot-two Jordanian was used to making deals. In the world in which he operated, deals were de rigueur—especially when it came to keeping the swelling tide of Islamic radicalism in check.
What’s more, he had always liked Scot Harvath, even with his unorthodox tactical decisions. No matter how he carried out his operations, Harvath was a man of his word and could be trusted.
The two had been paired together in Harvath’s early days with the Apex Project. A cell of Jordanians had killed two American diplomats and was plotting to overthrow King Abdullah II. Though officially the GID had no idea that Harvath was operating inside their country, Faris had served as his partner and a direct conduit to the king.
Abdullah had asked only one thing of Harvath—that he do his utmost to bring the cell members in alive. It was an incredibly complicated and dangerous assignment. It would have been much easier to kill the terrorists and be done with the entire operation. Nevertheless, at great risk to himself, Harvath honored the king’s request.
In doing so, Harvath not only earned the sovereign’s respect but also earned a couple of points with Faris, who was promoted as a result of the mission’s success.
“Of course if your presence here becomes known, His Majesty will disavow any knowledge of you or your operation. If the Syrians, or anyone else for that matter, discovered that we were allowing you to stalk an operative of theirs who was in our country undergoing cancer treatment, it would be devastating for Jordan’s image—not to mention the diplomatic fallout,” said the GID officer.
“Don’t bullshit me, Omar,” replied Harvath. “You know as well as I do that Al-Tal’s a threat to you too. A lot of the weapons he’s been helping the Syrians unload are going to groups like Al Qaeda who could very well use them here.”
“We are aware of that, but it doesn’t change the fact that our image is of paramount importance to us. Our credibility with our neighbors and allies would be significantly eroded if our involvement in your operation became known.”
“What involvement?” asked Harvath as he zipped up the duffel.
Faris smiled, removed a manila envelope from beneath his seat, and handed it to his friend. “Per your request, we have compiled a complete dossier.”
Harvath wasn’t surprised at how much was in there. The GID was usually very thorough. “Surveillance logs, photos, layout of the building—this is a pretty impressive dossier for less than twenty-four-hour notice.”
“Al-Tal has been on our radar screen for some time. When it was discovered he had entered the country under an assumed identity to begin his treatment, we began around-the-clock surveillance.”
“Any listening or video devices in the apartment?” asked Harvath.
“Of course,” replied Faris. “We were very concerned about the weapons sales. Any information we could have collected would have proven quite helpful.”
“But?”
“But the man has proven quite cautious. He speaks often o
n the telephone, but none of what we have picked up is of any direct use. We suspect someone else is running the operation for him while he seeks his medical treatment.”
“You said he doesn’t have much longer.”
“This is what his physicians have said. Weeks. A month tops.”
“And his family?” asked Harvath.
“It’s all in the dossier.”
“I don’t want any record of me being in that apartment. I want all of your listening and video devices removed.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” said Faris.
“Why not?”
“When he first arrived, he and his family traveled to the hospital on an almost daily basis. Now he is resigned to his bed at home full-time. There is always someone with him. It would be impossible for any of my people to get in there and remove those devices.”
“Then I’ll remove them for you,” stated Harvath. “I’ll need a detailed schematic of where they’ve all been placed.”
Faris reached into his breast pocket. “I thought you might ask for that.”
“What about the surveillance teams?” asked Harvath as he slid the piece of paper into the dossier.
“They’ll be pulled off as soon as you enter the building.”
“Then it looks like we’re all done here.”
Faris handed Harvath the keys for the nondescript, gray Mitsubishi Lancer he’d organized and then shook his hand. “Be careful, Scot. Al-Tal may be dying, but it’s when an animal is sick and cornered that it is the most dangerous.”
Harvath climbed out of the car, and as he prepared to close the door, said, “Tell your men to get ready to drop their surveillance.”
Faris was slightly taken aback. “Don’t you want to study the dossier first?”
